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Twitter misstake on iOS made users location data shared

General | May 16, 2019 | Master3395

Affected only a limited number of users, but Twitter still regrets the serious error.

Twitter has admitted a code failure that compromised geographical location data for some users. According to Twitter, the error itself should only have affected users who were logged in to more than one account simultaneously in the iOS version of the app.

Employees discovered the error themselvesFor example, if you had position logon turned on in one of your accounts, but not in another one with whom you were signed in at the same time - the other account would be able to retrieve, store, and share your position without permission with at least one of its ad partners.

Twitter has regretted the incident and has already sealed the error in the code so it should not repeat.

Limited and short-term scopeThe Twitter ad partner could not see accurate position data for the affected users since Twitter limited visibility to only share the approximate position within a five square kilometer area per user. Twitter should also not have shared the affected users' identities as Twitter profile name, and the like.

The partner company that received the information is supposed to have deleted everything about these users shortly afterwards, as part of their normal routines for storing sensitive data.